Sea turtle nests surge in NC
But climate change poses future threats
The Karen Beasley Sea turtle Hospital in Surf City cares for hundreds of injured sea turtles every year. While most patients in the fall and winter are suffering from ailments caused by falling water temperatures, that changes to turtles that have been accidently hooked by fishermen or struck by boats during the warmer months.
North Carolina saw a banner year for sea turtle nests in 2026, with the state's beaches recording more than 2,000 nests and hitting the second-highest number in nearly two decades.
While nesting numbers can vary widely from year to year, officials said there's no doubt this year was a good one for the endangered and threatened marine reptiles in the Tar Heel State.
Several factors are likely to have played a role in helping boost nesting numbers, including aggressive educational outreach and volunteer watch programs along North Carolina's 330 miles of beachfront, along with an El NiƱo weather pattern that hindered the development of tropical weather systems in the Atlantic that can wash away and inundate nests.
Four species frequent NC beaches
Sea turtle nesting season in North Carolina occurs from May through September. Female sea turtles emerge from the ocean at night, and using their flippers, dig an 18-inch-deep hole that will serve as the nest where she will deposit 80 to 120 eggs. After laying the eggs, she covers the nest and returns to sea.
After about a 60-day incubation period, the hatchlings emerge and make their way to the ocean. Only about one in 1,000 hatchlings will live to reproduce.
North Carolina sees four species of sea turtles lumber ashore to nest, with the vast majority being loggerheads and the rarest the highly endangered Kemp's Ridley.
How good was the 2026 nesting season?
In short, very good.
North Carolina recorded 2,042 nests, with the first one in late April in Atlantic Beach and the last one ā laid by a giant green sea turtle ā spotted in late September in Oak Island, according to statistics compiled by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.
The "Top 5" N.C. beaches for nests were Cape Hatteras (409), Cape Lookout (328), Oak Island (167), Topsail Island (152), and Bald Head Island (129). Loggerheads represented 1,970 nests, with greens coming in next with 64 nests.
In all, researchers believe more than 226,000 eggs were laid on N.C. beaches, with roughly 163,000 hatchlings emerging from the nests. Egg losses were mostly due to predation by coyotes and tidal/storm damage.
In 2025, North Carolina recorded 1,088 nests, with the first one recorded on Topsail Island on May 8, 2025.
The state saw 1,385 sea turtle nests in 2004 and 1,723 nests in 2023, according to wildlife resources.
Range of threats
Both in the water and on land, sea turtles face a range of threats.
In the ocean, dangers range from entanglement in fishing gear to boat strikes to ingesting plastics and other trash.
But that's if the hatchlings even make it off the beach to have a life at sea.
Turtle experts say artificial lighting is by far the biggest threat facing both nesting sea turtles and hatchlings after they emerge.
Lights can not only disorient the nesting female as she comes ashore, but also hatchlings as they move toward the brightest light they see when they come out of their nest. In a perfect world, that's the moon or the stars as they make their way toward the ocean.
Predators like foxes and raccoons, along with overanxious tourists eager to see and get selfies with a giant marine reptile that predates the dinosaurs, are other challenges nesting sea turtles and their hatchlings can face.
Climate pros and cons
Climate change also is a growing concern. On the beach, the warming weather is increasing sand temperatures, which helps determine the sex of hatchlings as the buried eggs incubate. If the beach is warmer than 89 degrees, most of the hatchlings will be female; if it's cooler, more will be male.
For a long time, researchers have believed that the cooler beaches in the Carolinas produced males to mate with the female-heavy hatchlings produced by the warmer beaches in Florida and along the Gulf Coast. But what will happen if all the country's beaches get so warm that the vast majority of hatchlings are female?
A warming climate, which scientists are predicting for North Carolina in the coming years, also could impact when sea turtles nest, prompting turtles to lumber ashore earlier than the traditional May start date.
The North Carolina coast has seen increasingly warm years, a trend that has continued into fall 2026. According to the N.C. State Climate Office, Wilmington this fall has recorded 11 days hitting at least 90 degrees, tying 2026 for the third most ever. The Port City in October 2026 also had seven days with highs of 85 or more, and didn't record its first morning in the 40s until Oct. 17 ā nine days later than the historical average.
El NiƱo, a natural climate pattern characterized by the warming of ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, also could have helped sea turtles have a good nesting year.
In the Atlantic, the weather pattern tends to reduce activity in the tropical Atlantic by bringing on stronger upper-level wind shear and sinking air, hindering the formation of tropical weather systems, while having the opposite effect and boosting activity in the Pacific.
The Atlantic basin didn't see its first hurricane of the 2026 season until Isaias formed in the Gulf of Mexico in early October, marking the latest date for a season's first hurricane since 1905.
While the N.C. coast, particularly the Outer Banks, has seen some strong and persistent nor'easters in recent weeks, those storms came after most turtle nests had already hatched, limiting their potential loss from beach erosion and inundation from heavy tides.
